A big lack of adequate role models :

Through a discussion with one of my team mates I came to realize a very depressing fact this week. Afrikaans people, and especially the Afrikaans youth, don’t have a credible and ethical leader we can look up too. How does that happen? We all know it is exceptionally important for the youth to have a role model to imitate and to relate too. More importantly these individuals should guide the youth’s being; they should be the visionaries for my generation.

What has gone wrong that there is no Afrikaans leader, man or woman, who I personally would like to associate myself with today? Very important knowledge and life experiences are possessed by these older individuals, which needs to be forcefully advanced to the next generation. In order for us to take the best of the generation before us, we need these mentors and their knowledge. If this issue is not addressed soon it will leave a gap within the Afrikaans community. Exactly this gap in leadership has made that people from other races begin to see someone like Steve Hofmeyer as a sort of “voice” for the Afrikaner people. This is very sad, as I certainly do not see it as the case. He is someone I would not like myself to be associated with at all. Where is the Beyers Naude’s in the world? Even if this continues I know the Afrikaans youth will eventually step up to the plate, however this process could have been advanced by the presence of a man or woman with character, innovation and a fundamentally new way of thinking and the lack of presence is negatively impacting the process. My colleague also made a very good point, though Afrikaners are by far the minority group in South Africa this country cannot successfully and effectively go on without our presence at the table. It is crucial that we effectively and efficiently need to be part of the reconciliation process as well as government to really make progress. For that matter, no race group can be left out, but especially not Afrikaans people.    

Let me move to more positive stuff. Our second week was about democracy’s function in the world, but more specifically within the African continent. It is very true that if a country has democratic status it does not really mean that they have a democracy in the true essence of the word. Freedom of association, freedom of religion, transparency and accountability are but a few of these. More importantly I have learned that it is an ethical mindset of leaders and within that having and accommodating active citizenship behavioral mindset of government. We also had a breathtaking visit to the Empire State of Mind: New York. It is everything you see on TV and it truly is a city full of skyscrapers and unique people. We met a few remarkable people from the South African Consulate and it was very obvious to me that they know what they are doing to ensure our country’s success internationally. We also had the privilege of meeting corporate people from Colgate-Palmolive, Standard Bank etc. Thank you to SAWIP management for organizing an action packed and very successful weekend.